[Nfb-science] A mentoring opportunity for engineers

[Shaheen, Natalie]

Federationists:
A few months ago, I had the opportunity to learn about National Engineers Week's flagship education program, the Future City Competition. I had hoped to write to you about this program when I first learned of it, but unfortunately that did not happen. I apologize that my message was not more prompt.

Future City targets middle school students. Teams that enter the competition consist of a few students, a teacher, and a mentor engineer. For the competition the teams are required to:

1. Research the theme for that year (this year's theme is run off) and use what they learned to design a future city.
2. Write an essay explaining the principals they used to design their city.
3. Create a scale model of their city
4. Use the computer game SimCity to create a digital model of their city (this program is unfortunately inaccessible, but could be accessed using a human reader)

Teams get organized and begin work in September and the competition happens in January and February.
The organizers of this competition are interested in having diverse student and adult populations participate in the program. I think it would be great if we could get some blind people involved in this program for several reasons. First, our blind students need as many opportunities to access STEM content as possible, just like their peers. Second, sighted students need to know that blind people are employed in STEM fields like engineering.

We will be a little late to the game this year, because of my tardiness in getting this message sent off, but I would like us to try to get involved with this program if we can. I have offered to volunteer with my regional Future City program. I will do my best to make our blind students aware of this opportunity (this will probably have to wait until next year since the teams have already formed up). I have provided Future City with some information about how blind students can participate fully in their program, and offered to answer the questions of any teachers or engineers who have blind students on their team.

I'm hoping you all, if you have time, will sign up to be mentors or volunteers in some other capacity. Mentors are paired with teams based on location, so you shouldn't have to travel far to get involved. Though the teams have already formed, the facilitators tell me that they are *ALWAYS* looking for mentors, they never have enough for all the teams. You can sign up to be a mentor<http://futurecity.org/signup/mentor> online!

I am not an expert on the ins and outs of Future City; I recommend you read more about the program on their Web site<http://futurecity.org/about> if you are interested.

I hope that we can find logical ways to get involved with this program to show the sighted students, engineers, and teachers that blind people can compete on terms of equality in STEM. And most importantly, make sure our blind students know that as well!

As I mentioned above, the game SimCity which the competition uses, is inaccessible. I've made the program facilitators aware of this. For now, we will have to use a work around like a human reader and manipulatives to access this piece of the competition. Hopefully, in the future, we can convince manufacturers like EA to create inherently accessible content because even games that seem recreational have educational value and we want blind children and adults to have access to those learning opportunities too.

If you have specific questions for me, please e-mail me at nshaheen at nfb.org.

All the best,
Natalie Shaheen

Natalie L. Shaheen, MEd
Director of Education
Jernigan Institute
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
200 E. Wells Street
at Jernigan Place.
Baltimore, MD 21230
Email: nshaheen at nfb.org<mailto:nshaheen at nfb.org>
Phone: (410) 659-9314 x2293
Twitter: @nlshaheen
Fax: (410) 659-5129
Visit: www.nfb.org<http://www.nfb.org/>
"If they do not learn the way you teach, teach the way they learn" --Anonymous